


Broken and Mended (Cassandra Appreciation Week)

by Providentially_Demonic



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Cassandra Appreciation Week (Disney: Tangled), Gen, Here goes, Short ficlets, Well - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-23 17:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30059322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Providentially_Demonic/pseuds/Providentially_Demonic
Summary: So, for the first time I decided to join on writing some ficlets for Cassandra Appreciation Week, because Cass is my girl. IT'S DONE!Chapter Seven: Bad Heir DayPrompt: AU“Cassandra, this disobedience cannot go on much longer. You are thirteen, well past time I should have betrothed you already."
Relationships: Captain of Corona's Guard & Cassandra (Disney), Cassandra & Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider (Disney), Cassandra & Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	1. Entangled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My take on Cass and Owl’s first meeting. Cass is a preteen in this, approx. 11-12. (as Owl appears to be a Great Horned Owl, if a small one, I found that in captivity they can live anywhere from 25 to 50!) So welcome to Owl as a fledgling! And yes, Cass has Disney Princess Animal Speech™. Live with it.
> 
> This first chapter is dedicated to [Frozenwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenWings/pseuds/FrozenWings) who has always been a delight to hear from and is heavily invested in anything Young Cass!

She heard the sound first, an alarmed cry that pulled on something deep in her that she was unable or unwilling to remember. 

Cass risked a glance at her father, all his concentration on setting up their little camp. It's not the first time he'd taken her hunting, but it's the first time he'd allowed her to carry her own weapon, a bow almost half her height.

Biting her lip, she stepped back a pace. She’d already got the firewood and the water from the creek. Her chores are done. Surely it wouldn't hurt if she just went to see what had made that heart-rending sound. Mind made up, she retreated down the deer trail she had used to find the creek. 

Cass wasn't as good at tracking as her dad and she knew it, so she marked her path carefully with her boot-knife, cutting a careful symbol in tree bark or into soft ground when her path veered into a patch of brambles. She could hear the cries still, though they were softer now and something told her what was making them was at the end of its strength.

The daylight was fading fast now and she was terrified her dad would notice that she'd gone much further afield than just gathering firewood. But every fiber in Cass told her she could not ignore the frightened sounds.

She broke through into a clearing and in the dimming light of the sun, saw something dangling, struggling wildly, from a branch of the massive oak that dominated the clearing.

She darted across the open space to peer up at the flailing bundle of feathers. It was an owlet, a fledgling barely out of his downy baby feathers, dangling from a piece of wire she recognized instantly as having been a snare. There were bits of rabbit fur on the branch and it didn't take much to deduce what happened. An inexperienced hunter found a snared rabbit and grabbed itself an easy meal. However, the snare that provided that meal had become tangled around one of its talons and then caught on the branch, and when he had tried to take flight, the snare had left him dangling, terrified, upside down from the tree limb.

Cass made a quick decision and scrambled up the rough bark. shimmying out onto the branch that held the fledgling captive. The owlet hissed at her, trying its level best to intimidate. 

"Shush. I'm not going to eat you. I'm trying to set you free, silly." She told the hissing creature, pushing herself out further on the skinny branch. She knew she couldn't cut the wire with her boot knife, not without dropping the fledgling to its death. So cautiously, she talked to the frightened bird as she skinned off her tunic to wrap around one hand. "I'm gonna give you something to grab onto, okay? Get your feet on it and I'll get you right side up and see if I can't get this wire off of you."

Cass was more than a little surprised when the fledgling quieted, peering at her with huge golden eyes. She honestly didn't think talking to it would work. She lowered her hand and winced a little as powerful talons grabbed hold, some going through the material and into her skin. But she was tougher than that and wasn't going to cry out. She got her other hand behind the bird’s back and slowly and carefully tipped him back upright, wincing as his feet tightened reflexively. But as soon as he was back on them, he began calming down, his ruffled wings settling as she cautiously tried to untangle the snare from around his leg. She’d almost gotten it when a shout of her name made her jump. 

Oh, she's in  _ so _ much trouble now. But doggedly, she worked at getting the last knot loose. It fell away just as her father crashed into the clearing. "Cassandra!"

"I'm okay, dad." She called down, shifting so she could launch the fledgling back into the air.

The branch under her snapped with a report loud enough to deafen her and on instinct she curled herself around the raptor as the world went blurring past her. She hit hard, yelping as her head cracked against a root. 

_ Oh, yeah... dad’s gonna be furious now...  _ she thought vaguely as the sky darkened even further. Her last sight was of her dad's worried face and the owlet, perched on her chest and mantling at her father with a hiss.

She woke in her own bed, with her head bandaged and aching— and saw her dad cautiously feeding a mouse to the owlet, perched firmly on her headboard. 

"It seems you made a friend," her father said with a quiet laugh as the owl gulped the mouse down whole, leaving the tail dangling out of the corner of his beak for a moment. "He refused to leave you after you got knocked out."

“Sorry. I couldn’t just leave him like that.”

“I would have been disappointed if you had. I only wish you hadn’t gone off on your own.” He smoothed a hand over her bandaged head. “You know how much it upsets me to see you hurt.”

“Yes, sir.” Cass managed a wobbly smile for her dad and reached toward the owl. He regarded her for a moment and then gently nibbled her fingertips. "Nice to meet you, Owl," she said softly.

He chirred a soft response and bent his head to push it into her hand. With growing wonder, she scratched his soft feathers. She had a friend, her first one ever.


	2. Mightier than the Sword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Managed another one! This one actually comes from Rapunzel's perspective, but it's all about Cass.

Rapunzel had always known that Cass’s favorite things were weapons. After her first look into the armoire in her room, stuffed nearly to bursting with weapons and other odds and ends she couldn’t name, but was sure could be used as weapons, she had her figured out. But she doesn’t know much about weapons beyond her hair and her trusty frying pan, so when she found out (the maids were gossips and as long as she appeared entranced in her painting, they talked freely around her) that Cass’s birthday was coming up, she dragged Eugene down to the forge in town.

Tentatively, she explained to Xavier that Cass's birthday was coming up and she wanted to get her something she would like... which could only be a weapon. That first year he had made her a pair of matching daggers that could be hidden in special sheathes in her boots.

Cass had smiled widely when Rapunzel had presented them to her and the sight of that delighted smile had made Rapunzel want to earn more and more of them. So she continued buying Cass weapons, not just for her birthdays, but every excuse she could find to give her one. 

But then the journey started, and she couldn't commission more weapons for Cass's ever-growing arsenal. But she finally hit on a backup plan, by talking to Cass and encouraging her friend to tell her what kind of new weapons she wanted when they reached home. She had spent hours on the driver's bench with Cass, sketching her descriptions of weapons that she had seen and wanted to try. She made careful copies of each sketch so Cass could have her own until they got back to Corona and she could start commissioning them for her. It had made Cass smile and that was all Rapunzel wanted.

And then the Moonstone and Cass's betrayal. It had hurt like one of those many weapons had been shoved in her chest. When Eugene was asleep, she sometimes brought out the sketches and traced them with a shaking fingertip, wondering when it had all gone so wrong. She never let him see her hunched over and dripping bitter tears on the drawings, now smudged and tattered, like her relationship with her best friend.

After the battle with Zhan Tiri and Cass's return to life, Rapunzel had cautiously approached her with a new sword, to replace hers, long lost. She based it on a few of the sketches, the parts of the designs Cass had liked the most, the curved blade, the wrapped leather on the hilt made from shark-skin to ensure her grip would not slip, the guard on the hilt to protect her hand. Her other hand was healed, but what the moonstone had done the combined stone could not undo entirely, leaving her skin a road-map of scars, and Rapunzel had seen with a pang how she still favored it occasionally.

Cass had accepted the sword, but had turned down any new weapons, taking only a few of the ones Rapunzel had given her before, and a few she had not. She had not given away how much that had hurt, only wishing Cass safe travels and resisting the urge to beg her to stay, only asking that she come back and visit.

With a wry laugh, Cass had promised she would. And she had, her first visit coinciding with Rapunzel and Eugene's wedding. She came back on and off—always with some new tale to tell, and far too often with some new scar. 

But on one visit she had sadly explained to Rapunzel that her sword, while it had saved her life, had broken in her last fight. She had bought a replacement, but was having Xavier see if he could reforge it.

Rapunzel had covered the pang with a smile, saying she was glad it had done what it was supposed to. But it felt like another part of their friendship had broken with the blade.

Unable to explain it, she found herself in Cass's room while Cass was out with Xavier, seeing if it could be restored. Cass's saddlebags sat at the foot of her bed, and were only half unpacked, like she might up and leave again. Rapunzel found a waterproof courier's bag sticking out of one, and wondering why on earth Cass would have such a thing, teased it open, checking to see that Cass had not returned. It was full of papers, bound into two neat packets. The first packet was full of familiar drawings and letters, drawings she had given Cass ages ago on the road to the Dark Kingdom and all the letters she had sent her on her travels. She smiled with tears in her eyes. She didn't think Cass was that sentimental. 

The second packet held a surprise, unfinished letters to Rapunzel, each having been scratched over and rewritten until the resemblance to a soldier's reports was unmistakable. So, so like the few letters Cass had sent her, but for every one she had received, there were four she hadn't. And many of them were more... sentimental than the ones that had made it to her. She found herself reading one that Cass had penned after her sword was broken, the edges of the paper bearing bloody fingerprints and telling without words how close that last fight had been. 

But it was the words written that brought tears to her eyes and a lump in her throat. "... used to be the weapons you gave me, the proof that you were trying to understand me, but it's changed. Now it's seeing you and Eugene and the others waiting for me whenever I visit. The smiles you have for me... I can't explain how much they mean, the welcome and love in them. I think those are my favorite things in the world."


	3. Chains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day three down!
> 
> I see this as taking place very early in Cassandra's journeys, after her self-exile from Corona. Adira just butted her way in and well...

“Hello, Shorthair.”

It took everything in Cassandra not to draw her blade. Slowly, hands clenched into fists inside her gloves, she turned.

She hadn’t seen Adira since— well, since the final battle, and then it was only in passing as she took off for parts unknown. She needed time to find out who she was, when she wasn’t in Rapunzel’s (or anyone’s) shadow. And frankly, she could have done without ever seeing Adira again. Because there was something she would have to do. But now, with the older woman in front of her, she had no choice. She had promised.

Gritting her teeth to keep the words from sounding any sharper than they already did, Cass spoke. “I apologize. For both taking the Moonstone and later controlling you through the Mind Trap. I wronged you.”

Adira regarded her levelly for a second. There was no readable emotion in either her painted face or her eyes. 

Cass itched to pull a weapon, anything to get some reaction out of the woman.

Finally a tiny smile tugged at one corner of Adira’s mouth. “Forgiven. Now, was that so hard?”

“You have no idea.” Cass gritted. “Now, if you will pardon me, I have—”

“Places to be? I sincerely doubt that. Last I understood, the Sundrop set you free to find your— destiny.” Her gaze drifted down to the piece of cloth tied around Cassandra’s bicep. “Or did she?”

Her hands clenched so tight they hurt. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“That’s a princess’s favor if ever I saw one.”

Cass brought her hand up to cover the scrap of fabric. “You’re a lunatic. It’s a piece of—”

“Yes, yes, the head-piece you wore as a Lady-in-Waiting. But did you tie that reminder of your servitude around your own arm, or did she?”

A cold lump settled in her stomach. “None of your business, Adira. You got your apology, now leave me alone!”

“So she did it.”

“Back off, before I make you!” Cass’s hand went up to her sword-hilt.

“Did that cut a little too close, Shorthair?” Now Adira was smirking, that too-knowing expression that had galled Cass every  _ single time she had seen it. _

“You’re about to see how close I can cut you,” Cass seethed, her blade more than a third of the way out of its sheath.

“Peace.” Adira raised both empty hands in a conciliatory gesture. 

Cass snarled, but took her hand off the hilt. “If this is your way of mocking me for what I did, you can shove off. Just because she gave this to me—”

Adira’s smile widened. “Ah, there it is.”

“There  _ what _ is?” Oh, Cass was going to enjoy cutting her to bits.

“That protective fire, the one I saw in your eyes, long before I even showed myself to you and the Sundrop.”

Startled, Cass drew herself up. “What are you on about?”

“I thought perhaps the fire had gone out of you, that you had damped it down so hard that it was smothered.” Adira tipped her head to one side. “But I see now that is not the case.”

Cass did not resist the urge to roll her eyes. “Well, thanks ever so much for the cryptic, but if that’s all, I’m going to—”

“No matter how far you wander, you are still bound, you know.”

“Are you through?”

“Are you?”

“With this conversation,” Cass riposted. “No matter what you might think, I’m not chained anymore. And that means I’m free to walk away from you.”

“What an interesting word to pick— chained.” Adira’s tone stopped Cass in her tracks. It was not the bland tone she normally used, or the subtly mocking one that grated on Cass’s nerves or even anger. If she could have given a name to it, she would have called it— pity. “Perhaps you saw them as chains, weighing down your limbs, binding your will to another’s—”

Frozen, Cass stared at her, breath caught in her lungs.  _ Her father’s voice, telling her that she  _ **_would_ ** _ take the position as Rapunzel’s Lady-in-Waiting, regardless of her protests. The Queen had only salved that wound a little, telling her in that position she could protect Rapunzel. Rapunzel— her soft voice telling Cass that she was a friend— and unwittingly holding her back from things she wanted, acknowledgment of her fighting skills, a chance to join the Ingvarrdian Guard. Rapunzel, telling her that when she became queen, she would have to give orders that Cassandra wouldn’t like, but would be expected to obey them.  _ Each had felt like a chain, holding her down and in her place.

That old anger welled in her chest again, but was frozen in place by Adira’s next words. “But perhaps you have forgotten— bindings and chains both have two ends. As much as they bind you, there is someone who has willingly bound herself back to you. Someone who would choose every time to be the anchor, one not dragging behind you, to keep you down, but to give you a mooring to come back to. She set you free so you could choose to have that grounding— or to cut yourself entirely free if you desired.” With that, Adira simply turned and walked away.

Cass touched the scrap of fabric tied around her arm. When Rapunzel had tied it there, she had said, “I can’t and won’t hold you back. There’s a whole wide world out there waiting for you to do amazing things— maybe even to protect it like you protected me. This is just to remind you that you will always have a friend here to welcome you.”


	4. Slave Trade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly stalled on an idea for this one so...

“What did you see, Owl?” Cass, crouched in the shadows of overgrown gorse bush, the yellow flowers obscuring her from anyone who happened to look up at the hill she occupied. Fidella waited in the shelter of a small grove on the other side of the hill from the small group of wagons and mounted men, stopped at a small creek to water themselves and their horses.

The raptor circling above her hooted twice, ending with a descending screech.

Fifteen men. That wasn’t good. A woman, a horse and an owl against fifteen was  _ bad _ odds, no matter how good the three of them were. She had the high ground and a bag of tricks, but that wasn’t enough to even the odds. Chewing on her bottom lips, she considered her options. There weren’t a whole lot. But she had to do something. 

Two towns back, she’d heard stories about a group of slavers abducting travelers along the roads along the borders of Equis. She’d listened carefully, taking note that they were moving toward the border of Corona. They wouldn’t dare Corona’s guard, but as long as they stayed on this side of the border, they were free to continue taking travelers. Trevor wasn’t about to stir himself to worry about commoners vanishing.

But in the last town, she’d seen a wanted poster bearing the royal seal of Corona, offering up a fat reward to anyone willing to take on the slavers. Cass wasn’t above a little bounty hunting to keep money in her pouch, and it— might be nice to go visit home— at least long enough to collect the bounty.

Besides, something in her resisted the thought of letting slavers operate so close to— to what had been her home.

She eeled under the prickly branches of the bush until she could see for herself. Three wagons, likely two holding their prisoners and the third, supplies and whatever they had looted from the people they had captured. The horses pulling the wagons were all of a match, heavy drafters, but the horses ridden by the slavers ranged from a cob that easily could have belonged to a trader to a high-bred palfrey, and a strangely familiar-looking white and brown-spotted horse, one that laid back his ears and snapped at anyone who came near him, at least until someone who might have been the leader of the group grabbed his reins and said a few harsh words. 

Though he still laid back his ears and snorted warningly, the horse let himself be mounted. The leader waved to the others to get back on the road. When they were in motion, he kneed his horse after them. Cass let herself grin. The horse clearly wanted no part of his rider and was making the ride as uncomfortable as possible, a jouncing stiff-legged trot that had to be sending a jolt up his rider’s spine with each stride.

They were moving slow enough that if she and Fidella cut across the hills to where the road took a wide loop, she might be able to set up some sort of ambush. The more of them she could pick off, the less she would have to take on up close and personal.

She slid down the hill to where she’d hidden Fidella. “Let’s go make some slaver’s lives miserable.”

Fidella was one of the fastest horses ever to come out of the guard’s stable, despite her being built more like a drafter than a racehorse. When she put her mind to it, she was blazingly fast and she proved it again, tearing across the hills to where the road bent in a loop around a cliff. Owl flew ahead, making better time by dint of being able to avoid the terrain that Fidella had to gallop over.

Fidella took the scramble to the top of the cliff like a champ and stopped, her sides heaving and sweat darkening her coat, but otherwise seeming unbothered by the run. While Owl circled to keep an eye on the coming wagons, Cass gave the mare a quick rubdown and a few carefully measured drinks of water from her flask. “Thank you, girl. That was brilliant.”

Fidella whickered and nudged her, standing hipshot in the shade of the few trees that had grown up here. Cass tied her coil of rope around the sturdiest of the trees and crept to the edge, peering down and judging for herself what tricks might be best. She had a small bag of caltrops, but she didn’t want to lame the horses. She hoped to keep at least some of the slavers alive to claim the bounty. That didn’t mean she couldn’t drop a few of them with arrows, it just meant that she’d need horses to haul any prisoners in. The flash powder Varian had given her during her last visit might spook the horses, but that wasn’t too much trouble. Fidella was a natural lead mare and would easily calm them. 

She cocked her little hand crossbow with a bolt in the groove and balanced it carefully between two rocks, slipping a loop of cord around the trigger and running it to where she had chosen to shoot from. From this height, she couldn’t count on the crossbow’s accuracy, so it was only to make it seem as if there were more people attacking them than one lone woman. She wouldn’t complain if it hit someone, but she wouldn’t count on it.

She strung her bow and tested the string just as Owl swooped in with a warning. Nocking two arrows, she slowed her breathing, letting nothing exist but the pull of the string and the play of her muscles. Movement below, and she sighted and loosed in one breath, drawing another arrow in the same smooth motion and sending that one flying too. She used the toe of her boot to trigger the crossbow as she sent another arrow into the air. Three more arrows and she knew she wouldn’t get another shot, the survivors had taken refuge behind the wagons.

Seven men were down, though three of them were only wounded and the bolt had actually hit one of the men driving the lead wagon. It had only hit him in the calf, but it was still a wound that would slow him. Cass signaled Owl and dropped her packet of flash powder. It blazed into life as soon as the air hit it, lighting the road below in glaring white light.

On cue, Owl, who had wisely kept his eyes shut during the initial flash, screeched and swooped down among the stunned and blinded men, screaming a battle cry. The horses, already spooked by the arrows and the light, broke and ran. Even the ones in harness to the wagons fought their traces. One wagon went over and another jounced off the road as the horses got the bit in their teeth and ran.

The leader's horse took the opportunity to throw him and instead of fleeing, turned and went after the fallen man with murderous intent.

Wrapping the rope around her gloved hands, Cass leapt over the edge, grinning at the wind in her face as she rappelled down in giant bounds. She hit the ground hard but came up with sword in hand. The wagon that had gone over had broken and several of the captives were scrambling out of the wreckage, and most of them went for the remaining men with bare hands or whatever weapons they could find.

Cass waded into the fray, her sword singing through the air as she blocked blows and sent attackers reeling back.

Suddenly, the enraged squeal of the leader's horse cut off sharply.

“Back off, nag, or I’ll gut him this time. You wanna keep him alive, get us out of here!”

Cass knocked a sword away and turned. The leader, his back to the rest of the fight, was on his feet and had someone by the throat, a blade pressed against his captive’s belly. The horse ramped and reared but didn’t attack. 

“Don’t listen to him! Get this piece of trash, Max!”

Cass would know that voice anywhere. She clubbed her opponent with the hilt of her dagger and vaulted over his falling body, headed for the man in a standoff with a horse she now recognized under the mud liberally spotting his white coat.

The hilt of her sword came down on the leader’s wrist with an audible crunch and he screamed as the dagger fell from nerveless fingers. She kicked his legs out from under him as his prisoner tore himself free, and turned to punch the man square in the nose. “That’s for using me against Max!” He kicked the slaver in the stomach. “And that’s for threatening my looks!”

“I’d prefer him alive, Fitzherbert. He’s worth more that way.” Cass said dryly.

Eugene turned to her with a grin despite the scabbing cut just under his goatee. He whooped and grabbed her in a wild hug, lifting her from the ground and whirling her around. “Cass!”

Caught by surprise, she could only endure his enthusiasm. At last he set her down, grinning and waving his hand at the dead or unconscious slavers sprawled around them. “Should have known I’d get to see you in action! Could have done without the kidnapping though!”

“I wonder if there’s still a bounty on you, Eugene.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I deserve it for having to listen to you all the way back to Corona.”


	5. Witch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this one makes sense.

“Don’t I _know_ you?”

Cass turned from the cobbler’s wares she was perusing, raising an eyebrow at the lanky, unshaven fellow looming far too close to her on the dusty street. “I don’t think so.” She refused to step back, regarding him levelly. 

“I think I do.” He grinned, baring teeth that had obviously seen the wrong end of a fight. “I think you're that traitor witch.”

Something in Cass froze. Not at traitor, for she had carried that word embedded in her heart since she had betrayed Rapunzel.  _ Witch— _ like her mot—  _ the woman _ who had stolen Rapunzel from her cradle. “I think you have mistaken me for someone else.”

“I don’t think so.” Still grinning, he reached into a pocket of his stained jerkin and pulled out several folded papers, torn corners indicative of them having been posted somewhere. He unfolded them and gleefully brandished one at her. It was her wanted poster, from before. Rapunzel had her pardoned, and all of the posters removed, but it was clear some had escaped the purge. She had a signed pardon order safely tucked away in her saddlebags, but those were with Fidella at the inn’s stable.

“I’m afraid you are very much mistaken,” Cass kept her tone level. “Perhaps she looks a bit like me, but I’m afraid that is not me.” 

It wasn’t strictly a lie, Cass didn’t consider that embittered person herself anymore. She wasn’t sure yet who she was outside of the roles that had defined her life, but she was not the same person who had taken the Moonstone.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I was about to buy something.” Very pointedly, she turned her back on the lout and asked the cobbler about a pair of boots she’d thought might suit her very well. Her old ones were a bit worn. And she thought the buckles on the sides might be a bit easier to handle when cold, wet weather made her scarred hand ache.

“I’m not done talking to you.” The man grabbed her arm. That was a mistake. 

Cass brought her hand up, with a dagger in her palm. “I suggest you let go of me before I make you.” The razor-edged blade shaved a few hairs off his scraggly stubble, coming to rest just above his adam’s apple. “I think you should go on about your business and leave me to mine.” She glanced at the cobbler. “Do you have time for a fitting?”

The cobbler lowered the hand he had raised to flag down the guards patrolling the market and smiled. “Of course. I can do it right now. Let go of the lady, Riggan. I will call the guards on you for disturbing Market Truce.”

The man he’d called Riggan spat to one side, but released Cassandra’s arm and stepped back. “This ain’t over, witch.”

Cass returned her dagger to its hiding place. “I think it is.” She turned and followed the cobbler into his shop while he waved a hand at a boy to watch the table.

~

Cassandra had felt eyes on her throughout the rest of her shopping, but either Riggan was good at keeping himself hidden or there were others watching her. Surreptitiously, she shifted her bags to free up her dagger. Market Truce meant no fights and no overt displays of weapons, so her sword was in Fidella’s stall, where the mare would guard it with teeth and hooves. 

She hurried her pace. Market stalls were starting to close and as soon as the sun set, the market would be over, and so would the fragile shield of the truce. But she made it to the inn without incident, stopping at the stable to add her purchases to her saddlebags and to give Fidella a couple of apples as a treat.

It was as she stepped into the inn-yard that she was surrounded. Apparently, Riggan had talked some other local low-lifes into joining him. Five men loomed in the flickering light of the torches illuminating the inn-yard. Cass assessed them, her hand on the hilt of her retrieved sword. Two were obviously there as muscle, hulking bruisers— one carried a club and the other had bits of iron chains wrapped around his meaty hands.

Riggan stood in the middle of his little gang, grinning nastily at her. “Sure your pretty little head is worth something to the right people, witch. Whether or not the rest of you is still attached to it depends on how nice you are to us, Drop the sword and get down on your knees.”

“Over your dead body.” Cassandra felt the ice flood her veins again, but this time with a cool, calculating fury. “I kneel for no man.” 

She sprang.

It was over half an hour later that she staggered into the taproom, bruised and bloodied. She dropped a handful of coins on the counter in front of the innkeep/barkeeper. “There’s a handful of men cooling their tempers in your water trough. I’d be obliged if you’d have the guard haul them off.” She told him, smiling grimly through a split lip. “I’d like to bespeak a bath and dinner brought to my room after. Whatever you’re serving and a bottle of honey mead.” The alcohol would ease _some_ of the pain.

The man made the coins vanish with the ease of long practice. “Of course. Will you speak with the guards?”

Cass shook her head. “It’s enough if you tell them they assaulted a patron in your innyard.”

The bathhouse was empty, everyone at their dinners, and Cass scrubbed the blood off her skin until it was pink. She sank into the heated tub to soak her bruises and pretended very hard that all the moisture on her face was from the steam. “I’m not her. I’m not like that witch.” She told the silent room. “I am not my mother’s daughter.”

It didn’t help.


	6. What Do You See?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece is mostly dialogue, with a few actions sprinkled in for setting. Some snark crept in, but that is inevitable whenever Eugene and Cass are in the same vicinity.

She felt the presence behind her before they said anything. “What do you see up there?”

Cassandra didn’t look away from the night sky, her hands flexing against the cold stone of the parapet where she sat. “Destruction. Despair. The antithesis of the sun. Don’t you wish the stars would just burn the moon out of the sky? The stars are clean and bright, like tiny pinpricks in the fabric of the night to let the sun through.”

“I didn’t take you for a poet,” a second voice said. 

She felt bodies settle on either side of her, but Cass did not tear her eyes away from the moon’s harsh light, white and unforgiving. “There’s a lot of things you don’t take me for.”

An arm slid around her waist. “Do you know what I see up there?” the first voice asked her.

“No, but I have an idea it’s the same thing I do.”

“You’d be wrong.” A hand cupped her jaw, turning her head to stare into eyes that she knew were the color of new spring leaves, though the pale light of the moon made them as deep and changeable as the ocean. “I see a protector. I see a stalwart guardian against the evils of the world that the sun can’t burn away.”

Cass made a scoffing noise.

“Well, you know what I see?”

“No one cares, Fitzherbert.”

“Rude. But I’m going to tell you anyway.”

“That sounds like something you would do. Open your mouth even when no one else is listening.”

“Sunshine, would you put a muzzle on her, please? I have things to say.”

“Cass, please—”

“Fine. You can talk but nobody says I have to listen.”

“I would be offended if— you know what? I’m not, because I know you.”

“Do you now?”

“I do indeed. And you know what I see? I see something Sunshine forgot to mention. I see a light in the darkness. A torch against the shadows that loom long when the sun sleeps. The stars may burn brightly, but the moon burns brighter, showing a way  _ through _ the dark.”

“Eugene, that was beautiful! I’d think you were a poet too!”

“Eh, I read a lot when I was stuck in Italy. Everyone says it’s about the art or the food, but they have a real way with words too. Though the food— the food is  _ magnifico.” _

“You think with your stomach, almost as bad as Strongbow.” Cass’s words sounded thick in her own ears and she cleared her throat. “But— thank you.”

“Hey, why are you thanking him? Did nothing I say matter?”

“While the pout is astoundingly intimidating, I was thanking both of you, Raps.”

“Oh,” Mollified, the princess leaned against her side. “What do you say we raid the kitchens and have a picnic up here? I kind of— maybe— skipped dinner.”

“Dare I ask why?” 

“She was looking for someone being all broody and morbid, possibly scaly— but the jury is still out on that one.”

“Raps—”

“What? I was worried! You didn’t show up for lunch either!”

“Uh— in town. With my dad. Where you told me to go.”

“Oh—”

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

_ “NO! _ Okay, yes,  _ maybe, _ but I told you that forever ago. Like days.”

“I haven’t been here for days, Rapunzel. I got in town yesterday morning. You told me last night after dinner!”

“Ladies, ladies—”

An indignant chirp.

“And frogs. I think she has the right idea. Food tames the most savage beast and if we don’t get some into both of you, I’m a little afraid of what you might turn into. Especially you. Cassandra.”

“I don’t need to turn into something to kick your ass.”

Above, the moon shone benignly down on the playful bickering, clearly illuminating the laughter on their faces. 


	7. Bad Heir Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This particular one takes place in my and Eternal-Phantom's AU of an AU (While I consider all of these story-bits canon to the universe of [Splitting Heirs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24456757)/actual canon, but I digress. Splitting Heirs is ~~technically~~ an AU.) [Heir Today, Gone (Aventuring) Tomorrow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27508810), wherein Gothel made a fatal mistake and Edmund wound up raising his twin children himself.
> 
> Warning for crude and sexual themed language and mentions of someone getting rather painfully punched in _places_.

“Cassandra, this disobedience cannot go on much longer. You are thirteen, well past time I should have betrothed you already. Your brother was betrothed at eight—”

“And we all know how well that went.” Eugene snarked from the chair he was lounging in, a cold piece of meat that Hamuel was eyeing hungrily draped over his bruised right hand.

“Horace, that is entirely enough out of you!” Edmund seethed at his son. “You punched him during a full court dinner. The diplomatic repercussions alone—”

“Yes, he was betrothed at eight, but there’s one major difference,” Cassandra cut in before Edmund could really get started. “He likes Rapunzel. I like Rapunzel. Neither of us like Prince-Can’t-Keep-it-in-His-Pants.”

Edmund’s attention snapped back to his daughter. “What?”

“Why don’t you ask Lily the chambermaid?” Eugene put in sullenly. “She was happy to show him a place he could put it.”

Edmund looked a little startled but shook his heavy head. “He’s a young man and as we  _ all _ know, not betrothed  _ yet.” _

“Not to me, not ever.” Cassandra stood firm. “He’s a prick.”

“Cassandra!”

“Well, he is, both personality-wise, and in the fact that he thought showing his to me was supposed to impress me. After discovering I wasn’t impressed by how well he rode a horse. Poor Delilah. One of the grooms is treating her for the cuts in her mouth and the ones from his spurs.” Cass primly folded her gloved hands in front of her. She didn’t have a bruise like Eugene was going to sport, but her knuckles were a little discolored.

**_“WHAT?”_ ** Edmund’s roar startled Hamuel into flight, that ended when the raven crashed into the back of Eugene’s chair and spiraled squawking to the floor. He decided playing dead was the wisest course of action, and lay there on his back in a sprawl of wings.  _ “He did  _ **_what?!?”_ **

“Tried to convince her to play hide the sausage,” Eugene put in succinctly. “Why do you think I punched him? After she told me—”

“I told you, I didn’t need you to defend my honor.” Cass retorted. “I already defended it myself. I punched him in it.”

“He  _ touched _ you with it?!?” Edmund bellowed, shaking plaster from the walls.

“Well, technically she touched him— if you count her punching him in the prick and then kicking him in the balls.” Eugene put in with a gleeful sort of dark humor. “That was all before I punched him. I was going to break out one of Mom’s old hexes before you called us in here to yell about it. I was thinking something along the lines of—”

“Boils.” Cass grinned at her brother. “Boils on his bum. See how well he rides then.”

“You think too small. I’ll show you a couple of my favorites and you can help me decide.” Eugene grinned back.

Edmund sighed and rubbed his temples. Surely he had not been this much of a trial on his mother. “So long as your virtue remains safe—”

“Like I was gonna let that sleaze touch me.”

“I will break off negotiations with his father and bid him never to return to my kingdom on pain of—”

“Cass.” Eugene put in. He and his sister started laughing with malicious glee.

“Pardon?”

“On pain of Cass. He’s more scared of her than death now.” Eugene laughed so hard the slab of raw meat on his knuckles slid off and flopped on the floor next to Hamuel, who decided the time for playing dead was over.

“Just leave me, both of you. I will have words with both the wretched boy and his sire.” Edmund waved his children to the exit. He could hear them start plotting to look at Melisande’s book before they were even out the door.

“And another one down, Sire.” The voice came from his right, where Quirin had remained motionless in the shadows this entire time. Edmund waved him forward and poured both of them a measure of wine from the carafe by his seat. He’d had a feeling he would need wine. Though perhaps brandy might have been a better option.

“That’s the third one, already. I don’t doubt her claims, not with the murderous look both of them were sporting, but I am fast running out of princes to betroth her too.”

“I did warn you that she is more likely to stab a prince than consent to wed one.” Quirin chided, accepting the cup.

“That’s not how this works, old friend, you know as well as I.” Edmund sighed. “Do have the boy and his father brought to me when you finish your wine. I’d sooner have them out of my kingdom before my children start planning more revenge schemes.”

“As you wish, Sire.” Quirin threw back his wine and strode off, leaving Edmund to brood into his cup.

Hamuel made a choking sound and he glanced down to see the raven trying to swallow a chunk of meat larger than his head. The meat won and Hamuel horked it halfway across the floor. “Perhaps you are right. I should look farther afield. I hear the Southern Isles have a surfeit of princes.”


End file.
